


Not a Word

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Affection, Caretaking, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Stress Relief, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6584446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew she was pissed when the door slammed shut hard enough to leave cracks in the frame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Word

He knew she was pissed when the door slammed shut hard enough to leave small cracks in the doorframe, and he didn’t even have to swivel around in his chair as he heard her drop her bag on their couch and stomp up the stairs, silent in voice alone.

When he finally did turn to inspect his door, he found that small chunks of it had bent from the force.

His doors were solid titanium. 

It didn’t take a genius to determine that Marie must have had a bad day.

Ever since the Kishin Wavelength had intensified and he’d been put on house arrest, he found that the most interesting thing in the house was often the person who was most out of it. Sure, he had the time to type up thesis after thesis, trying to put to words what his mind often garbled up, but he found that it was both useless and uninteresting. He had shifted his focus from dissections and biology to chemical reactions and mathematics, if only to have fact that didn’t involve blood beneath his fingernails, but it was dreadfully boring. He had rehashed the equations before: relearning and re-memorizing formulas was doing nothing for him save for allowing his mind to wander.

Which it was doing up until Marie had whirlwinded in with the force of a hurricane. He had to hand Marie this: she was a variable he couldn’t predict. Marie’s emotions fluctuated in ways that Stein could never follow, and he was curious about her. She was a tropical storm of a woman, and sometimes, he was at the eye of her (and he does find it ironic, being in the all-too-obvious apple of her eye, as well), when all was pleasant and sunny, warm. In those times, she was a circle of protection from the rest of the world, her furious gale only ever directed at others.

And it was still only directed at others, but for once, he was farther from the center and closer to the edges.

Edges were a dangerous place to be, with Marie.

His soul perception flared up, trying to focus on just how she felt, and when he finally located her, her usually gentle, golden soul was blaring so harshly, he thought even  _he_  would have a hard time resonating with her when she was so angry.

It must have been her students, once his. He knew firsthand how much of a headache many of them could be.

Yes, that must have been it. Marie was responsible for a massive group of young people: her instruction could mean life or death. And to top it off, she was stuck as his temporary warden, living on edge, constantly anticipating when his hold on his control would finally snap.

For it was “would” and not “could”. He thinks they both knew that, though Marie wanted to avoid it with everything inside of her.

Sighing, he stood up, making his way to one of his Bunsen burners and grasping hold of one of his clean beakers. He was barely even thinking, going on muscle memory as he boiled water. His body knew the motions intimately well: all those nights he stayed up, unwilling to succumb to nightmares that had him scratching at his face, drinking cup after cup of coffee.

But instead of instant, which was terrible on a good day, he only watched as the water started to bubble before he turned, walking to where Marie kept all of their food goods so he could get something else

It took some digging, but he eventually found what he was looking for in one of the lower cabinets, and he returned to the Bunsen burner just as the water came to a boil.

* * *

 

She knew it was stupid of her to want to throw in the towel, but, Death, she was so damn sick of teaching. She was sick of students who didn’t listen to her. Students who liked her, of course, and students she liked as well, but some of them never took any notice that there was an apocalypse looming over their heads and it was on her shoulders to teach them how to deal with it.

Her head was pounding. Marie’s mouth tasted sour and she didn’t remember if she had enough to eat that day. Maybe when she took some medicine for her damn headache, she’d feel better.

Speaking of medicine, she almost cringed at how callous she had been by walking past Stein without so much as a ‘hello’, but she thinks if she said anything, it would be more biting than she intended, so she decided to let it slide.

Still, she knew it wasn’t easy for him, either. He was stuck at the lab all day, home, and though she’d kill for a vacation, she knew it was the farthest thing from such for him.

Swallowing hard, Marie pressed the meat of her palm to her eye, rubbing slightly. She was thankful that her mascara was waterproof, budge proof, hell, practically deathproof, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t cringe when her slightly stiff lashes brushed over her skin. She exhaled slowly, trying to ease her irritation before she sat down on her bed.

But sitting quickly turned into flopping face-first into her pillows.

She imagines it must be pathetic. Here she was, on the wrong side of 25, husbandless, childless, and in desperate need of a massage.

She needed a boyfriend. She needed to get  _screwed_. She needed a hot shower. 

She needed-

Death, she didn’t even know. She needed some damn morphine.

When she heard the soft knocking on her door, she groaned under her breath, each sound seeming to split her head open. She was tempted to tell Stein to go away unless he was coming in with any of the above in mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to be irritated at him. It wasn’t his fault.

“Yeah?” she asked, and she almost winced when her voice came out so tired and muffled. He must not have heard her, because he only responded with another knock. Marie rolled her eye before she lifted her face from her bedding. “Yeah, Stein? What do you want?”

“I have tea.” 

She blinked incredulously, sitting up entirely, both her eyebrows climbing up to her hairline.

Tea? It sounded like some sort of peace offering.

“Oh!…Uh, come in?”

At least he had manners. The door was unlocked, but he only pushed it open after she allowed him to, and something warmed in her chest. He looked even more haggard than she did. She supposed she should thank her lucky stars that she could still get sleep at night.

Her eye zeroed in on his hands, where she saw a cup of tea in a beaker, something so very Stein that she couldn’t help but be charmed by it. By him.

In his other hand, he had a small bottle of what she presumed were painkillers, and she felt her face flush in embarrassment over her previous yearning to snap at him. She watched as he stepped forward, setting the glasswear down on her bedside table before he popped the cap to the bottle of pills and shook two out, handing them over to her.

She felt like her fingers were clumsy when she reached for the medicine, and her voice was stuttering out before she could even help herself.

“How did you know?” she asked, blinking up at his massive form. His expression, tired and worn, twitched into a ghost of amusement, and she felt like her heart was fluttering.

“You almost brought the lab down when you slammed the door,” he told her, and there was a chuckle in there, somewhere, his mouth twitching up at the edges.

It was getting harder and harder for him to find happiness in anything, and though she quickly shoved the pills in her mouth to avoid blurting out anything more embarrassing, she thinks the medicine didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she was feeling better.

She supposed that even when she didn’t know what she needed, she could at least count on him to know her better than she knew herself. Gently, he picked up the cup of tea, still hot but not scalding, and warmed her palms on it before she lifted it to her mouth, taking in a deep sip and washing the painkiller down. At that, Stein set his hand on her shoulder, giving her a single pat before he turned and made his way out of the room.

After a moment, right before his foot left the doorframe, Marie swallowed her drink and bit her lip, watching his retreating figure, wanting him to stay.

“This is chamomile?” she asked, and her voice stopped him in his tracks. When he turned to look at her, she could almost imagine the muscles of his sides moving, and she had to swallow at the thought, willing herself to stop thinking.

“Yes,” he answered, his eyes narrowing from behind his glasses as he, undoubtedly, looked at her soul, now far happier after his efforts.

“It’s my favorite,” she informed, almost feeling silly.

When his lips twitched up once more, she could swear her wavelength flared up in the way it always did when she was happy because she felt far too warm to be normal.

“I know,” he replied, and his smile made her heart flop. She only got a single glimpse of it before he actually made his way out, gently closing her door behind him, leaving her with “If you need anything, ask.”

When she looked down at her fingers, they were glowing gold.

And she felt giddy.


End file.
